The Bucs gave away a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter and watched their playoff odds plummet in a dreadful loss to the division rival Atlanta Falcons. I could write a series of novels about who was disappointing in this game, but it’s late and I’m tired. Here is a whittled down version.

Bucs Head Coach Todd Bowles

Bowles’ defense has faced a Kirk Cousins-led Falcons offense three times in the last 16 months. For him to once again not have answers for the EXACT SAME issues that plagued his defense in each of the past two meetings is the definition of unacceptable.

Falcons QB Kirk Cousins – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Middle of the field defense? Horrid. Defending Kyle Pitts? It would seem Bowles’ unit is the only one in the NFL that isn’t able to do so. The Bucs defense would allow more touchdowns to the Falcons tight end than he tallied over his previous 22 games dating back all the way to the last time he faced the Bucs. Pitts torched Tampa Bay for 11 catches and 166 yards.

Bijan Robinson? Bowles’ defense allowed him to rack up 175 yards on 27 touches.

The only thing that stopped the Falcons offense had nothing to do with Bowles or his team. The Falcons set a franchise record for penalties. Those penalties stalled multiple drives, or the Bucs never would have been in the game to squander it at the end in the first place. It was embarrassing, even more so than the week prior against the Saints.

S Christian Izien

The Bucs were without one of their best defensive players this season in Tykee Smith. His replacement, Christian Izien, struggled to fill the gap. He was left in coverage on Pitts multiple times and was left in the dust almost every time. Pitts shook him early in the route inside the two-minute warning in the first half for an explosive 35-yard gain into the red zone and followed that up with another 17-yard catch on the following play for his second touchdown of the game.

He was targeted [five] times and allowed a perfect catch rate and passer rating while giving up 76 yards and a touchdown. Izien proved to be a liability fitting the run as well, with multiple missed tackles in space while also getting covered up or run out of position on the edges.

Falcons TE Kyle Pitts – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Many of these targets happened over the middle of the field, as he was just as culpable as the linebackers and Antoine Winfield Jr. in that area of the field. Cousins found David Sills right in front of him for a 20-yard gain down to the Bucs’ 6-yard line in the fourth quarter to set up a Falcons touchdown one play later, bringing the score to 28-20 Tampa Bay.

Izien redeemed himself to a degree late in the third quarter, forcing a Bijan Robinson fumble that set the offense up to go ahead by two scores, but for most of the night, it was a ROUGH go for the former undrafted free agent.

Bucs Middle Of The Field Pass Coverage

Stop me if you have heard this one before. Several Bucs defenders walk into the middle of the field and fail to cover anyone at all. Kirk Cousins picked up right where he left off in 2024 against the Bucs, carving up the short-to-intermediate parts of the field down the seams.

Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts, who would be the highest-paid player at his position already if he only had to face Tampa Bay every week, was the primary beneficiary of Cousins’ distributions. He beat Antoine Winfield Jr. over the middle for 26 yards on an in-breaker down the seam. He also caught Cousins’ first touchdown of the game on a short crossing route in the low red zone. Pitts also put linebacker Nick Jackson through the spin cycle on a play-action crossing route earlier in the game for a 13-yard gain.

Falcons RB Bijan Robinson and Bucs ILB Lavonte David – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Tampa Bay’s linebackers, Lavonte David and Nick Jackson were just as bad. David allowed seven catches for 85 yards and a touchdown himself. Most embarrassingly, the Bucs failed to force a single incompletion on the night over the middle of the field.

The Falcons in total had 184 yards receiving…after the catch. Most of those came in this area of the field. Kirk Cousins finished the game 18-23 for 195 yards and a touchdown in between the hashes as the Bucs had precious few answers for the third matchup in a row.

Bucs Pass Rush

Kirk Cousins cooked the Bucs defense in 2024 in part because of his quick trigger. He didn’t need to get the ball out quick tonight. He averaged a speed-of-smell-like 2.91 seconds to throw on the night, because the Bucs defense failed to find ways to pressure him.

The pressure numbers weren’t terrible in a vacuum – somewhere around 35-40% – but it took forever for those pressures to manifest, giving Cousins all of the time in the world he needed to beat the Bucs’ coverage over and over and over and over… Tampa Bay tallied just one sack of an immobile quarterback. It’s just unacceptable.

Bucs Linebackers

Lavonte David’s age showed once again with multiple missed tackles in addition to the constant coverage failures. The fall from grace for the future Ring-of-Honor inductee is tough to watch. Nick Jackson played less than two dozen snaps and almost all of them were bad. He couldn’t find the ball, couldn’t get off blocks and was constantly out-athleted by the Falcons’ playmakers.

Deion Jones fared better than his position-mates, especially in coverage where he had some good reps, but he also missed multiple tackles allowing plenty of yards after contact.

Bucs’ Backup Defensive Linemen

The Falcons offensive line and Bijan Robinson ate up the likes of Greg Gaines and Elijah Roberts, displacing the two regularly. The physical domination up front gave Robinson plenty of room to find lane after lane on both the front and backside of their wide zone scheme. Robinson and Tyler Allgeier tallied 111 yards on just 21 carries on the night and had another 10-20 called back due to penalty.

Bucs DT Elijah Roberts and Falcons RB Bijan Robinson – Photo by: USA Today

LG Mike Jordan

Jordan had a good run for the first two games of the season. It’s been rough since. He struggled to create displacement and wall off defenders in the run game, limiting multiple runs that had a chance. Him getting run over led to tackles for losses on more than one occasion.

In pass protection, he allowed the pocket to get dented over and over. They won’t necessarily go as pressures, but it made Baker Mayfield uncomfortable and looking for escape hatches throughout the night.

QB Baker Mayfield

Mayfield made some great throws on the night. But ultimately, the negatives outweighed the positives. Mayfield ran into multiple sacks on the night, at least three he owned by my count. But it was the interception he threw to Dee Alford, who fooled him by sliding into the underneath flat on a throw to to Mike Evans, that set up a Falcons touchdown to put Atlanta back into the game late in the fourth quarter.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: USA Today

Mayfield also missed a wide open Emeka Egbuka on a crossing route with 2:24 left in the game. Had his throw been out in front of his young receiver, Egbuka would have had a first down and more. With the Falcons out of timeouts, it would have meant the end of the game and a Bucs victory.

Instead, Mayfield’s throw was behind his receiver and fell incomplete, leading to a failed third down and a punt that would set up the Falcons’ game-winning drive.